Vikings Offense Looking To Bounce Back In Week 2

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The Vikings play three of their next four games at home starting with Sunday’s home opener against Tampa Bay.

Over at Winter Park, the Vikings’ offense is looking for a way to bounce back from its inconsistent effort at San Diego last Sunday. Mainly, the players are talking about what needs to happen to rack up more yards and score more points on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Last season the Minnesota Vikings sputtered to an 0-2 start — including a Metrodome opener loss to the Miami Dolphins. This year the Vikings needs a week two Dome opener win against a Florida team from Tampa — or history will repeat itself.

“You don’t want to dig holes. You want to rack up as many wins as you can, they all count,” said offensive lineman Phil Loadholt. “We’re definitely looking forward to coming out and having a chance to win in front of our home crowd.”

Minnesota is looking to rebound from a gloomy loss in sun-drenched San Diego. It was a game in which the Vikings blew a 10-point lead and Donovan McNabb threw for a meager 39 yards.

“The only thing you hear people focus on is that he threw for 39 yards,” said running back Adrian Peterson. “We could have had well over that if we would’ve been able to bring some of those easy balls in.”

There is a lot of road work around the Minnesota Vikings complex in Eden Prairie, which in some ways is symbolic. Based on their effort last week in San Diego, their offense is still under construction.

The Vikings believe their second half meltdown against the Chargers is a hiccup. They said their offense will get better and that it is not vanilla.

“I don’t think we’re predictable by any means,” said quarterback Donovan McNabb. “Everyone expects us to hand the ball off to Adrian, but there are plays in this offense and things that we can do.”

“We’ve only had this playbook I guess for about four or five weeks now,” said offensive lineman Charlie Johnson. “So we just have to keep grinding every day and keep working to get better.”

The team hopes that hard work will pay off with more yardage, more points and their first victory of the season on Sunday.